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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Zoe Williams

Inside the No Space for Bezos movement: ‘One man rents a city for three days? That’s obscene’

A giant sheet on the ground reading “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax”
A banner in Piazza San Marco, Venice. Photograph: Yara Nardi/Reuters

When she heard that Jeff Bezos was getting married in Venice this June, Heather Jane Johnson felt worse than she had in her entire life. Twenty-five years ago, she ceased trading as a bookseller in Boston, Massachusetts. “I lost a lot because of Bezos and the complicity of Americans in the making of Amazon,” the 53-year-old says. “A big reason I moved to Italy is because I felt betrayed by my countrypeople.”

So when posters went up calling a public meeting in the city she now calls home, she went, and she has been to every meeting of anti-Bezos activists since, including one the day before her own wedding last week. “These young people have really restored my faith in humanity,” Johnson says.

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